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The black hunter travels through the mountains and forests of Greek mythology. Taking its title from this mythological figure, this book approaches the Greek world by charting the elaborate system of contradictions which pervaded Greek society and culture - wild yet cultivated, real yet imaginary.
Through this thorough history of the Jews, stretching as far back as the revolt against Roman rule in the second century BC, and moving forward through to the modern day, Vidal-Naquet aims to teach us that history and memory can and must be preserved for future generations.
This is the history of the development through the ages of Plato's "Atlantis" story - the imperialist island state that disappeared in a cataclysm, leaving Athens to survive it...Instead of simply focusing on the various attempts to 'find' Atlantis - all of which are futile for the very good reason that Plato made the island up - the author re-examines the very different uses made of the myth in different contexts and periods. He shows how Plato's myth was reinterpreted in the medieval period and after through conflation with the search for the lost tribes of Israel; how it became involved with the debate about whether Europe should look back to its origins in the Classical or Biblical worlds; how the myth was reinterpreted with a more geographical emphasis following Columbus' discovery of America; and how it was used in the "Enlightenment" to add colour to nationalist attempts to claim antiquity by finding unrecognised origins. Written in a clear and interesting way, Pierre Vidal-Naquet's original ideas rest on deep knowledge supported by primary references and illustrations.
The acclaimed French classicist Marcel Detienne's first book traces the odyssey of "truth," aletheia, from mytho-religious concept to philosophical thought in archaic Greece. Detienne begins by examining how truth in Greek literature first emerges as an enigma. He then looks at the movement from a religious to a secular thinking about truth in the speech of the sophists and orators. His study culminates with an original interpretation of Parmenides' poem on Being.
This volume presents the meditations of seven well-known French thinkers on the special relations of their own intellectual pursuit to Judaism.
A collection of articles, most of them published previously. Pp. 143-191 contain the endnotes to the articles. Contents:
Jean-Pierre Vernant has profoundly transformed our perceptions of ancient Greece. Published in 1991, this collection of nineteen essays probes deeply into themes of enduring interest--death, the body, the soul, the individual, and relations between mortals and immortals; the mask, the mirror, the image, and the imagination; the self and the other, and, more broadly, the concept of otherness itself, or "alterity."
Describes how in 507-506 BC Cleisthenes regrouped Athenians into ten tribes equitably spaced around the city and decoupled city time from the religious calendar. Argues that democracy was born in those reforms. First published in 1964 as Clisthene l'Athenien: Essai sur la representation de l'espace et du temps dans la pensee politique grecque de la fin du VIe seecle a la mort de Plato by Annales litteraires, and translated from the 1992 edition. The English version includes a new introduction and a discussion among the authors and philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Oswyn Murray charts the shifting uses of the ancient past, showing how three centuries of scholars interpreted ancient Greece in the light of contemporary political interests. Rich in stories and portraits of influential thinkers, The Muse of History is a powerful reminder that the meaning of the past is always made in and for the present.